Back in the late ’70s, a poster hung in my high school guidance counselor’s office. It was part of a college recruitment campaign called Work Smart Not Hard. In the long history of bad advice, you’d have to look pretty hard to find something dumber than this. And yet, the expression is still with us.

So…with a little creative license (and no respect for the original), I’m pleased to present a new platitude with a different attitude.

For many years, some other guy named Mike Rowe owned mikerowe.com. He didn’t do anything with it, but he nevertheless refused to sell it for what I felt to be a reasonable sum. I saw this as a sign from above, and an ideal excuse to not launch my own personal website.